Founded in l977 by Bob Woods and Jack Renner, Telarc has won 46 Grammy Awards and boasts such legendary artists as Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Andre Previn, The Atlanta and Cincinnati Symphonies, the Cincinnati Pops and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Heads Up includes on their roster Spyro Gyra, The Yellowjackets and Hugh Masekela. LA-based Concord Music Group, originally founded in Concord, California in 1969 by auto dealer Carl Jefferson to produce live recordings made at the Concord Jazz Festival, is behind Genius Loves Company – Ray Charles’ final recording, which won 8 Grammys. Besides Telarc, Heads Up and Fantasy, their labels include Concord Picante, Riverside, Milestone, Pablo, Prestige, Stretch, Stax, and many more. The label is owned by equity firm Tailwind Capital and multimedia holding company Act III Communications; TV producer Norman Lear is co-owner of the latter company.
DTV Transition and Public Safety Act Passed – The hard cutoff date for analog telecasts and the return of the analog spectrum to the federal government has again been moved – this time to February 17, 2009. The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) supports the passage of the legislation by the House this week as providing certainty to manufacturers, retailers, consumers and all others with a stake in the transition. They pointed out the return of the spectrum will allow additional frequencies for first responders, and have potential for developing fast obliquitous wireless broadband connectivity. The bill still requires a vote in the Senate and then signature by President Bush. The CEA promised to continue its consumer education efforts to make sure all consumers are aware of the options and opportunities. [Good idea, since the average person has no idea their analog TV will be eventually just turned off!…Ed.]
Recording Artists Fight DRM – The controversy over the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection on audio CDs by Sony BMG has heated up with a number of pop artists taking matters into their own hands in seeming violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. My Morning Jacket is doing their very own recall of all their copy-protected CDs and burning and sending out to their fans new unrestricted copies of the CDs. Objections to the use of the XCP DRM copy protection have also been voiced by the Dave Matthews Band, Switchfoot and Foo Fighters, among other groups. The hope is that record labels may cave in and eventually give up on problematic copy protection, which can always be overridden by a computer nerd somewhere anyway.
